I am a beginner to woodworks but I do have a project where I want to embed a slab of magnet into wood. I am making a magnetised general necessities holder but I’m not sure how to insert the slab of magnet into the wood without it being seen, I want to keep an invisible effect where the magnet is embedded into the wood and not seen outside of the wood. Please help me, thank you in advance for the advice.

(The wood sizing has not been confirmed yet, right now I would just like to know if its possible and whether or not the process is difficult)

5 replies so far

So, you want the magnet to be covered by the wood? If that’s the case I would drill (or chisel out) a hole for the magnet so it is flush with the surface and either super glue or epoxy it in place then cover it over with a thin wood veneer. I did this twice and discovered that I needed pretty strong magnets to hold up the knives through the glue and veneer … which is why I did it twice.

For the best attraction, you want the magnet as close to the surface as possible. Bill’s advice here is spot-on. Drill the required holes and place the magnets with their faces flush to the board (I use epoxy). Cover everything with veneer.

Alternatively, I drill a hole from the back side of a board with a forstner bit that has the small centering nib ground off.This gives a flat bottom hole and allows me to get very close to drilling all the way through for best attraction.I place the magnet in the hole then lock it in place with epoxy.

I have a magnetic knife strip made of red oak—works very nicely. I did it from the back. The problem was that it was difficult to get the strip thin enough. A 64th” can make a big difference. It has held up for a number of years. The wood needs to be very thin, and the spur on a forstner bit would go through the front to get it that thin. I ended up using a Router.

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